Tag: Guinness

I’ve always been a big U2 fan. I loved their early music of the 1980s, tuned out a bit in the 1990s, and reengaged with their uneven albums of the past 15 years. I’ve seen them in concert a few times. They always put on a great show, but the concerts earlier in their career were more spontaneous, energetic, and thrilling. They’re getting old now, and in my opinion the recent shows are too over-the-top huge and overly programmed down to the last millisecond.

U2 in the early days…

Back in 1983, the Irish band U2 was on the War tour across the US. On Sunday, May 22, they played Northrop Auditorium on the campus of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. This was back in the day when the band played 5,000 seat venues and stadium tours were sometime in their future. I was a college student at the U of MN and months in advance I went with my best friend Laurance to the ticket office very early on the day tickets for the show went on sale. We were excited when we got tickets in the third row. I had finally atoned for my blunder the year before when I didn’t go early enough to buy tickets for the October tour date in Minneapolis. It sold out before I got there.

The show was fantastic, Bono climbed into the audience and sang part of song right in front of us, the Edge’s guitar work was amazing, and the crowd went crazy. When the show was over, Laurance suggested that we go outside to the back of Northrop Auditorium. He had heard that sometimes bands would go out the rear stage door when they left the building. So we hiked around the huge hall and found the stage door.

A small crowd of young people were standing by the stage door. We waited and waited. Nothing happened. The crowd thinned. People decided they had better things to do than wait any longer. After a long period of time we talked about leaving. But we were diehard U2 fans. This was our one chance to meet them. Only two girls remained with us.

The door opened and Bono, the Edge, and Adam Clayton, the bass player, emerged into the night air. They were friendly and talked with us for 10 or 15 minutes. We didn’t have a camera (smart phones weren’t invented yet), so the only image of the event I have is my memory. I remember that Edge was really short!

Me: “What does your Mom think of your success?”

Adam Clayton: “I dunno. She must like it.”

So much for my expert journalistic instincts in interviewing.

Girl #1 to Bono: “Do you know Mick Jagger?”

Bono, laughing: “Uh, no.”

Girl #2 to Edge: “Did you know Elvis Presley before he died?”

Meeting three of the members of U2 has been one of only three brief encounters with celebrities in my lifetime, along with seeing Wilt Chamberlain lean over a café counter (that dude was tall!), and urinating next to Walter Mondale in the Newark Airport men’s room.

Yes, every day is a lovely day for a Guinness!

This summer I finally traveled to Dublin, home of Ireland’s favorite musical sons. I wondered if anything related to U2 existed in the city as an attraction. The only information I had was that they came from a North Dublin neighborhood.

In a tourist brochure I found a reference to a “U2 graffiti wall.” The wall was supposed to be on a street called Hanover Quay near the Grand Canal docks in the Dublin Docklands area. The Grand Canal was linked to the River Liffey, which runs through Dublin. It is one of the older parts of the city and quite run down.

Thanks Dublin!

I navigated to the proper spot according to the map in the brochure but there was almost nothing left of the U2 graffiti wall. Many of the old buildings on the street were torn down and new condo towers were being constructed in their place. Only a couple of wall fragments were left. Across the street from this spot was a large anchor mounted in a concrete block. The anchor and the surrounding old brick had some U2 graffiti on them, perhaps as an afterthought when the wall was torn down…

The remnant of the Windmill Lane Studios.

A few blocks away from Hanover Quay is a small street called Windmill Lane. A recording studio was started there in 1978. U2’s early music was recorded at Windmill Lane Studios, culminating in the 1987 masterpiece that was The Joshua Tree. The studio moved to a different location in Dublin in 2006.

Windmill Lane Studios former home is gone.

The site has been popular for music fans to visit and leave their creative mark. Because the area is being redeveloped, the building which housed the Windmill Lane Studios was demolished in April 2015, a few weeks before I visited. However, a section of one outer wall still stands, pending a decision on what to do with it. One idea is to preserve it and move it to another location.

More Windmill Lane graffiti.Barrels of beer at the Guinness brewery.

I never made it to North Dublin to see the neighborhoods where the band members grew up. Instead, like everyone else I visited the Guinness brewery, took the touristy factory tour, and drank Guinness from the seventh floor bar (overlooking the unimpressive city skyline of Dublin). Each night I made the touristic pub crawl through the Temple Bar area. Drinking Guinness beer and listening to live music in a series of small Irish pubs is a most excellent way to spend an evening in Dublin.

The band in every pub played U2 music at least once or twice in every set. That was OK with me, because I still haven’t found what I am looking for.